And so we reached our last day in Chile.
The landscape, that had looked so dry when we had driven through it a
month earlier, now looked distinctly green, compared to the really dry
north where we had been.
Apparently deep
in thought, digesting the glorious sights we had seen, we forgot that,
even along the Pan American Highway, it is good to keep the fuel tank
above half way full. As we were also running low on money, we passed by
a petrol station that did not accept credit cards, thinking that we'd
soon find another that did. Wrong!
As the fuel gauge approached empty, Leo
slowed down to optimum speed, coasting down hills - anything to conserve
fuel. We stopped at a small hamlet - Puenta Huentelaquin, some 38 km
north of Los Villos where, according to the map, we would find our next
petrol station. As we were convinced that we did not have enough fuel to
get to Los Villos, we hoped to persuade people in the hamlet to sell us
a few litres of petrol. We were in luck! The local tyre repair man had
two very old pumps from which we were able to fill up the car - a close
call!
We made only one stop today (S107),
the last of the trip, at Pichidangui. How we wished we had more film and
I made a note to return here on a future trip (see
4 June 2003) and to read up Fred
Kattermann's book Eriosyce before doing so.
Our original plan was to spend the last
night at the El Parador cabañas near Calue, but as we had made good
time, and Marlon's flight to Brazil required a 6 a.m. check-in, we
decided to spend the night in Santiago. However, we had to go to El
Parador to return some spare car parts that we had borrowed on the way
up and to cancel our bookings.
We arrived in Santiago, around sunset
and made for the Airport, hoping to find some basic and affordable
accommodation, but somehow got caught up in the flow of traffic, ending
up in the centre of Santiago, surrounded by endless lanes and rows of
busses.
We spotted a hotel sign, found a place
to pull up and tired but happy booked in, to finish off the remainder of
the red wine we had had on board while we did our final packing.
There's not much left to report for the
next day, other than that we made it safely to the airport, nearly
missed the car-rental rep as he arrived just as we had to go to through
customs into the departure launch.
It had been a fantastic trip: we had
seen lots of marvellous plants and scenery, met some wonderful people
and made some lasting friendships.
In the words of Arnold Schwarzenegger:
'I'll be back!'
